capsize, I would stay conscious only for a while. I was too tired to paddle, so certainly I was also too tired to swim. Too bad I had never learned the kayak roll. Too bad that somehow the strength I used to possess had ebbed.
I stopped paddling to see where the current would take me and also because I could hardly move my body anymore. I couldn’t catch my breath. A wave breached the rail and spat into my mouth as I was yawning.
I had always been muscular for a woman and believed I had retained above-average stamina. During my thirties I had lifted weights in a gym about ten hours a week. During my forties I had been a yoga fanatic. But now, in my fifties, I became easily exhausted. I felt generally weak and would give up on household chores after half an hour because of a desperate need for a nap. Maybe the fatigue was a normal consequence of getting older, I thought.
Just as I was about to let the sea take me wherever it would, I saw red hair gleaming in the sun. It was Cheryl in her kayak, plowing through the surf. She roped my kayak to hers and towed me until we were near the shore. Then I paddled sluggishly alongside her to Potato Point on Mayne Island, where Abbe waited, smiling and cheering me in. Cheryl and Abbe were close to my age, and they had plenty of energy. What was the matter with me?
After that experience, I decided that the problem was that I was overworked. I had two jobs, too many students, and little time to spare. Retirement would cure me, I was sure. To prepare for it and for our dream life of ease, in the late summer of 2012 my husband and I moved away from Vancouver into an ocean-view home on forested land on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. My plan was to work there for a few more years and then to enjoy my family and travel.
The Sunshine Coast is a peninsula, lying twelve miles from Greater Vancouver across Howe Sound. A ridge of the Coast Mountains surrounds the sound, creating eye-popping seascapes but making road travel to Vancouver impossible. To get from the rural coast to Vancouver’s frantic metropolis, we had to take a ferry. Al and I both worked there. We commuted two hours each way—on the boat, bus, and SkyTrain—for our jobs.
Leaving at 5:45 a.m. to catch the ferry was tough because I rarely got enough sleep. Besides being tired in the day, I suffered joint pain in my arm and shoulder at night. I was also unusually jittery. No matter when I got to bed, a stabbing pain would jar me awake close to midnight. The only relief was to sit upright for at least an hour. I kept both a Kindle and an Android reader on my bedside table, each loaded with several books. I would fire one up, place three pillows behind my back, and read. Eventually I would flop into sleep, but I would suffer a couple more bouts of anguish before dawn. The routine often woke my husband. Al, ever tolerant and an easy sleeper, would half open his eyes and ask what was wrong. I remember a night when I answered by snapping, “Don’t you know?” I tossed the Kindle aside and knocked my lamp onto the floor, shattering its bulb. I had thought living on the quiet Sunshine Coast would keep me relaxed, but it didn’t.
Soon after the move, I learned that my doctor in Vancouver was thinking of retiring. After thirty years of a doctor–patient relationship, Dr. Louise Halliman and I had become friends. I told her I planned to retire soon too. So as Louise tested my damaged arm for mobility, we talked about opening up time in our lives during retirement. It seemed the right time to try a doctor on my side of the ferry route.
Back at home I called Dr. Iris Radev, who had just begun to practice in Gibsons. Her assistant slotted me into a “meet and greet” appointment for March 10, 2014. As the day approached, I decided I’d interview Dr. Radev, find out if I liked her manner, and withhold my decision whether to change doctors until I had given it some thought. Dr. Radev turned out to be a perky young woman in a trendy gray business suit. Perched at a computer, she tapped away as she asked about my medical history. She started with the usual set of questions: Any history of cancer in my family? Heart problems? Major surgery? No, no, no. The questions kept coming—there were more than I was used to—and she mentioned that she liked to be thorough. She examined my heartbeat with a stethoscope, and she looked down my throat with a tongue depressor. She asked about my medications, and she filled out a prescription for one that was running low. She typed the information into the computer with fingers almost blurry with speed. A printer churned out the prescription. I gazed on in appreciation, my plans to treat the “meet and greet” like a job interview as far out the window as China is from my living room.
The printer kept spitting out pages. “These are for tests,” she said, handing me some of the sheets. “When I get a new patient, I do a lot of tests.”
I thanked my new doctor and headed out of the clinic into the sunlit parking lot. Unlike medical labs in Vancouver and its suburbs, the LifeLabs unit in Gibsons is seldom busy. In fact, a ten-minute wait for anything on the Sunshine Coast except the ferry is considered exceedingly long. So as I walked out of the Gibsons Medical Clinic I had no excuse not to pop into LifeLabs. The sun shone. Spring was coming, and potted pansies bloomed on racks outside the grocery store. Ambling through the parking lot, I glanced through the lab’s sidewalk-to-ceiling windows. The waiting room was empty. I gazed at the top sheet in my hand and read that one of the tests would be a blood test. I turned and walked straight to my car. After all, my dog, Zeena, was alone at home, wanting a walk. I told myself the tests were routine. There was no urgency.
Actually, I knew Zeena could wait. I was skittish around anything that could draw blood. I had fainted twice during blood tests, and once in the 1980s I wobbled with my stomach churning as a doctor sliced a quarter-inch sample of a rash from my young daughter’s shoulder. Both Jessica and the doctor reached out to steady me, and I squirmed in embarrassment. The incident reinforced my squeamishness, which prompted me to sidestep Dr. Radev’s order for a blood test.
Besides asking me to get the blood test, Dr. Radev had recommended that I see a physiotherapist for my joint pain. The physiotherapist wanted a copy of MRI results from tests that had been done on my shoulder the year before. Close to two weeks after my first visit with Dr. Radev, I stopped at the clinic to ask for those. Since I’d be in the same mall, I decided to go to LifeLabs. As I left the medical clinic, I conveniently skipped the second task and drove instead to Tim Hortons.
Driving home with a coffee in the cup holder and a honey cruller in hand, I scolded myself for being a wimp. My husband and I would be leaving the next month for Mexico. Before splashing into the ocean off Tulum, I should make sure I was healthy. So I got off the main drag, made a U-ey, and drove through Upper Gibsons to the mall. My fingers were sticky from the donut, so I took a side trip to a washroom at the nearby supermarket. I continued on to the medical lab, stopping at a clothing store to try on some jeans and at a kitchen store to hunt for a cheese grater. I wandered through the Sears outlet store, comparing major appliances I didn’t need. Then I steeled myself and entered LifeLabs.
The waiting room was empty. I started to leave, but a short, curly-haired lab assistant named Bernice arrived at the counter and reached for my requisition. Once I handed it to her I was committed.
“You can go right ahead,” Bernice said. She led me to a room with a beige padded chair fitted with wide, beige padded arms that went well with the beige-everything look of the clinic.
“I can’t sit. I’ll faint,” I said, thinking my blood would create a startling contrast with the decor.
Bernice led me to another room with a narrow vinyl bed that had a sterile paper cloth spanning its length. I lay down, stretched out my arm, and squinted my eyes shut. I explained I had fainted in the past.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t take long. You can stay here and lie down afterward, until you feel okay.” She babbled about the weather and stretched a tourniquet around my arm. A needle pierced my skin. Seconds slushed by. My stomach fell, as if I were descending in a roller coaster. “All done,” she said.
My mind spun for a few minutes, and then I slowly rose from the cot.
